The present invention generally pertains to communications systems and is particularly directed to an improvement in connecting a subscriber communication network base station to an external communication network having a plurality of ports.
A known prior art base station in a subscriber communication network for communicating signals between subscriber stations and an external communication network having a plurality of ports, includes a communication circuit for enabling simultaneous communications between a plurality of the ports and a plurality of subscriber stations over a given communication channel having multiple sequentially repetitive time slots, with predetermined time slots being assigned respectively to predetermined subscriber stations; a remote-connection processor for directing communications between the time slot assigned to a given subscriber station and a given port; and an exchange for connecting the communication circuit to the ports. The exchange includes a switch which responds to a control signal from the remote-connection processor by physically connecting a selected port to a selected communication channel time slot assigned to a given subscriber station. Such a prior art base station is described in pending U.S. patent application No. 713,925, filed Mar. 20, 1985 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,863, dated June 23, 1987.